The war has been going on now for too long. The Earth's atmosphere is unbreathable. Survivors on both sides live in underground complexes, drinking recycled water and eating vat-grown protein, breathing air that is stale and filtered and scrubbed. Industries are running low on resources and recycling is compulsory. Vehicles are virtually unknown, air transport is via dirigible airship, and is vulnerable to ground fire as the craft move slowly. On the seas, sail is now the way.

Animals exist within the complexes, sheltered from the poison and radiation on the surface but are owned by the governments. Movement on the surface must be in a sealed overpressure container, or in an airtight suit. And of course, the highest number of casualties comes from suit punctures. Suits are bulky and cumbersome, they restrict movement and vision. They must either be light and flimsy, or heavy and armoured - there is no fuel to waste to provide a power source, nor the engineering capability to create the necessary servo system to allow for a power armour suit.

But now, the Northern Powers have come up with a strategy to turn the tide of the war, that has been stalemated for decades. They will defeat the Southern Jihad, retake the oil rich tropical zones, re-establish their supremacy over the Earth.

A lab deep beneath the ruins of Oslo has been working with a number of volunteers from the Northern Powers Combined Armed Services to genetically engineer a way of allowing soldiers to operate unencumbered on the surface once again. And it looks like they have succeeded. The soldiers are uglier than they were, more muscular, they have odd looking protuberances sticking out of their mouths which actually enable them to breath the normal air that fills the lab. Their lungs are tougher and they are immune to the effects of radiation. And most importantly, their skin is now green.

They are the Optimally Recalibrated Combat Specialists.

Okay so if you've read this far, I'm going to take it you want to know more? First of all, I must apologise for the acronym. As with all acronyms, the abbreviation came first, and then I had to find words that would fit. And I just couldn't find a word beginning with the letter O that meant poison or radiation! "Poison Resistant Combat Specialist" just doesn't work...

And in case you have only just woken up, or have had a REALLY tough day at work, or maybe had a little too much to drink.... the acronym is O.R.C.S.

Yep, green-skinned, tough as nails, tusk-mouthed Orcs.

The idea was inspired totally by the picture at the top... Coupled with a teenage memory of 2000AD's character Rogue Trooper.

So, lets get down to brass tacks, shall we?

Who is the game open to: Basically anyone who wants to join, provided they are willing to work within my requirements for their character. I have one BIG rule here: Lords must play male characters and ladies must play female characters. Lieges may play either, and may also ask to play intersexed characters, if they have a good enough reason.

Other than that, characters may be of any sexual orientation you wish.

I have my reasons

Yes, I have my reasons for the above restriction. Partly it is down to my own preference, I do not really enjoy playing opposite a female character played by a male player. There are one or two exceptions but it is far easier to make it a blanket rule. But the other main reason is I have seen too many games killed off because boys want to play lesbians. The female players won't write with them, and they won't write with each other, and so the game dies.

What format will the game take? The game is going to be a freeform "Magufin hunt" style game, GM guided rather than freeform.

What characters are required? Basically a squad of genetically modified soldiers, who are now green-skinned orcs. Specialisms are acceptable as this is going to be an elite squad of volunteers, they are basically the prototypes, the experimental beta-testers of the technology. It is on trial and if they succeed in their mission then other regular units will be enhanced.

Details of the process itself are classified but I will supply sufficient information for character creation if I get enough interest.

Where and when is this set? An alternate Universe Earth, probably a few decades from now. I do have a back-story in mind for the war, which I will post up if I get enough interest, once I've got it worked out.

Are we allowed to play the enemy? No. Short answer! The long answer is, No, because I've never seen a game like this get big enough to have two groups of players going simultaneously. What happens is, one group gets most players and the other gets very few. The group with most players becomes active, the other group dies off and the GM might just as well have put everyone on the same side to begin with!

How many threads will there be? One main game thread for IC posts, one OOC thread for out-of-character and off-topic discussion, and one approved character thread where I will post the character sheets.

Is pairing up allowed? *shrug* If you really want to... I actively discourage it in my group games because it inhibits player interaction. A couple go off by themselves and fuck, and then drop out. If you want to do that, start a one-on-one game, don't join a group!

Is smutt/sex allowed? Of course... as long as you don't mind being interrupted!

What will happen when someone drops out? Heh, you need to ask? This is a military game set in a war torn world where fighting is going on.... Anyone who drops out will have their character killed. And the initial 50% drop-out rate of people who post once and never post again will be handled by the fact that I am going to start the game with the unit already in combat. If this is unacceptable to you, the answer is simple: don't drop out...

What about joining later, how will that work? In my experience, it doesn't. I've never yet had anyone come along and ask to join a game after it has got going, and do so successfully. However, on the off-chance that someone does want to, they can simply be assumed to have been there all along and just not said anything, for the first while. After that, I will devise some method for them to be brought in as a replacement.

What is the mission? Ah, now that would be telling! You might leak it to the enemy... No, but seriously, I tend to make this stuff up as I go along. It will probably involve capture and/or destruction of a key military target/leader. Think Dirty Dozen meets The Bridge at Remagen...

So I'm interested, what now? Please express your interest in the usual manner by posting to this thread. If I get enough people that I think the game will survive the start-up attrition I will begin filling in the reserved posts below...

These are my standard OOC rules of play for group games. I put them in every group game I run, usually with minor variations to suit the specific setting. I like to think there is nothing draconian or unacceptable here, and I ask all players to read them. Submitting a character sheet to me implies that you have read and are in agreement with these rules.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH SOMETHING HERE, PLEASE TELL ME!

All rules except two are negotiable!

McGuffin Guided Goblins

This is a GM directed roleplay. What that means is that I as GM will be moving events forward a little at a time, allowing you, the players to play out the situations your characters find themselves in. There will be an ultimate goal for the team, which if they achieve it, will result in a pat on the back from their superiors and another, even tougher assignment. The general idea is that you work with me in order to achieve the goal. If you feel like taking the story in a totally different direction, then I probably won't be able to stop you if you all agree, but to be honest it would be far more reasonable of you to start/join a different game that goes the way you want, rather than join and derail mine!

RULES:

The GM's word is law. This does not mean I'm not open to discussion, but if it comes to an impasse, if a decision needs to be made, or a discussion is getting out of bounds, I will render a decision that I expect to be abided by. I will do this based upon context.

Respect other players ons and more importantly, their offs! This is NOT negotiable. Ons and offs are there for a reason. If you feel someone has broken this rule, please PM them first to talk about it. If they will not change their post, then contact me via PM and I will deal with it. Please note that persistently ignoring another players O/Os is grounds for reporting to staff!

Try to post at least once a week. If you know you will be unable to post for a while please let us know in advance in the OOC. it is a good idea to create an Apologies/Absences (A/A) thread so everyone you are RPing with knows where you've gone. Players who fail to post for a considerable length of time will have their characters killed off by enemy action

If you know you are going to be away for a considerable time (more than a week) please bring any story-arcs you are involved in to a conclusion, or extract your character from them. If you inform me you will be away, I will not kill off your character!

If you find your character is sitting around doing nothing, post something to the OOC, or PM me. If you wait for someone to interact with you, you will wait a long time. Let me know and I will create an event for you.

If you have any questions about anything in the game, ASK! The only stupid questions are "how many beans make five" and ones that aren't asked!

The OOC-Chat thread will be for people to chat. I have no problems with you guys discussing the latest football results if you wish, (although I'd rather you didn't as I don't like football), because it means you are getting on as a group. Use that thread as you see fit, but please give priority to game related discussion.

Please tag all IC posts using the code that will be supplied, editing the details as appropriate. This will enable other players and myself to track where everyone is.

There is no rule 9.

Players who drop out of the game will have their character killed off by enemy actionb If this is unacceptable to you, don't drop out of the game.

Please try to post a minimum of 300 words per post. If you post short once in a while, that isn't going to be a problem, but doing so consistently will draw my attention and I will ask you to expand your posts. If the player you are responding to has not given you enough material to write a decent length post from, PM them and ask them to expand their post.

God-Moding is a big no-no, but in a n/c game a certain amount of "moving the story on" needs to be expected. If you feel you have been god-moded, talk it over by PM, and if you cannot reach a satisfactory solution, bring it to me.

Actions have consequences! If your post has been replied to, it has become canon. Please do not edit it without permission.

HAVE FUN! This too is non-negotiable. If you aren't having fun, I would like to know why, so I can change whatever it is that is stopping you having fun!

The GMs will discuss your character with you and if it is approved will post it to the "approved character thread".

Submitting a character Sheet For Approval Implies That You Have Read And Are In Agreement With The Above Rules Of Play, And The Character Creation Rules Below.

Rules:

1) All Characters are to be the same gender as the player unless the player's gender is undefined. In other words, Lords must create male characters, Ladies must create female characters, Lieges may create either, regardless of the player's physical gender.

2) All characters are to be Military Personnel from the "Northern Powers". I will give more details on the war itself later, but in brief, the Northern Powers include any country in continental Europe and North America, also Russia (actually counts as Europe) and Japan. China and India are not part of the "Northern Powers", but are allied, as are the "Himalayan states" of Nepal and Bhutan. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are also allied to the Northern Powers

3) Characters must be Enlisted ranks, and may be anything up to Sergeant. There will be one officer (GM) and one senior NCO (Co-GM).

4) I am willing to accept a "Dirty Dozen" type unit, provided you, the players, are prepared to accept the same terms and conditions as in the original "Dirty Dozen" film - If one of you screws up, you all go back for execution of sentence... In other words, if you decide that you don't want to "follow orders", then that's it, game over!

5) Please be aware that the penalty for disobeying an order in wartime is summary execution without trial. I've had it happen in the past in a military game where someone who thought they knew better than me decided that their character was not going to obey an order my character gave. Now, I have never been in the military in real life, but I've read a lot of military fiction, and in all cases, a character disobeying a direct order from a superior is either court marshalled or shot! In the aforementioned game I was not the GM. In this one I am. You have been warned.

6) All characters have undergone the Optimal Recalibration for Combat process. In other words, they all have green skin and pointy ears, and are able to live unprotected on the surface, in an environment deadly to normal unprotected humans. They are all taller and more muscular too. And all have tusks. The tusks actually serve as atmospheric compensators when the ORCS are forced to breath "normal" air.

7) Players are limited to a maximum of two characters each.

8) All characters submitted to the GMs become the property of the game. In the event the creating player drops out of the game, the character(s) will be taken over by the GMs and eliminated from play on whatever manner is deemed most appropriate, most likely by enemy fire.

8) I reserve the right to disallow any character without giving a reason. However, I will normally try and give a reason and discuss with you ways in which your character can be made acceptable. Possible reasons for rejection are:

Cross-gender characters (except for lieges)

Over-powered characters, or ridiculously proportioned characters

"Mary-Sue" or "Marty-Stu" characters

Characters who's name matches the player's username

Characters that are inappropriate to the story or setting

Characters that are clearly designed to be disruptive

Incomplete, modified or incorrectly filled in character sheets

Character Sheet

Please fill in the character sheet below, removing the notes from each section and replacing them with your character's details. Please do not make any other alterations to the layout.

To fill in the sheet, click the "select" link at the top, then press <CTRL> + C, create a new PM addressed to myself (Chrystal) and NowhereWoman, type "Character Sheet" in the subject field, and then in the main text box, press <CTRL> + V to paste the template in. Alternatively, paste it into a text editor of your choice, fill it out and then copy the completed text into a PM.

If using the latter, please be aware that the BBCode tags will not translate into ASCII text formatting characters, and vice versa. Please leave the tags as they are.

[b]ORC height:[/b] Increase by up to 1.3 x[b]ORC weight:[/b] Increase by up to 1.5 x

[b]Nationality:[/b] Where are they from

[b]Rank:[/b] Military Rank

[b]Specialisation:[/b] If they have one.

[b]Strengths:[/b] Please list at least one thing they are good at.[b]Weaknesses:[/b] Please list at least THREE things they are bad at and at least two more than strengths.

[b]Personality:[/b] what sort of person are they? What makes them tick? At least one paragraph of about 100 words please.

[b]History:[/b] How did they get where they are today? Be inventive, within the context of the war. At least two paragraphs of about 100 words each, please.

[b]Player O/Os:[/b] Link to your O/O page or your Preference matrix

[b]Other:[/b] Anything else you think might be relevant.

NOTES:

Image: Okay so, actual photographs of orcs are pretty few and far between unless you go to cosplay cons, so artwork is acceptable. But GOOD QUALITY artwork please. No cartoons, manga, or the like. There are plenty of great quality images out there. IF you can find a decent image of an orc carrying a gun, great. If you can't, don't worry. I will accept images with more "traditional" orc weapons.

Player ID: Yeah, amazingly, people do get this wrong! It is your Elliquiy login ID, the name that everyone on THIS website knows you by.

Name: The name of your character. Please make it different to your own name. If it is the same as your login ID I won't approve the character. Note that all characters were human before they were "processed, so human names please?

Gender: As previously stated, this is really only relevant for Lieges, who may, if they wish, and have a sufficiently good justification, ask to create a character that is neither male nor female.

Human height & Weight: Come on USA, keep up? You are the ONLY nation in the world NOT using Metric! These stats are what your character was BEFORE the treatment. Please be realistic. There are Height/Weight charts on the internet to help if you need one.

Orc Height & Weight: You can increase the human ones by anything up to the multipliers listed. So if your character was 175 cm tall they could end up being anything up to 227.5 cm tall as an orc. Increasing the stats is NOT compulsory, however. If you want they can remain the same size.

Nationality: Please specify which country within the Northern Powers they are originally from.

Rank: Not how they smell... This is what rank they are within their nation's military. You may also specify what branch of the armed forces. The default is "Army".

Specialisation: They do NOT have to have a specialisation. Please note that only one of any given specialisation will be allowed, so if someone has already submitted a sniper, and you want to be the sniper, I'm afraid you're out of luck. The list below is by no means exhaustive, if you can think of another one please feel free to suggest it:

Sniper

Heavy Weapons

Demolitions

Communications

Medic

Electronic Warfare

Close Combat

Infiltration

Strengths and Weaknesses: A character is defined far more by their weaknesses than by their strengths. Please note that I will NOT accept "An inability to follow orders" or anything along those lines as counting towards the number of weaknesses.

Personality: This is the bit where you need to show your flair for character creation. I'm not going to hold you to this. if the character departs from it or their personality changes during the course of play, that's fine. But please try and use it as a guide. And try and keep it consistent both with the character's role and the overall game setting.

History: Be as creative as you like with this bit. If you put something in your history that doesn't fit with the overall scenario I will tell you, but I really don't want to build the entire world right down to individual neighbourhoods that got nuked, so please feel free to define what has happened to your part of the world, remembering that everyone now lives below ground in sealed bunkers and shelters.

Player O/Os: You MUST have an on/off page or a preferences matrix filled in, to join the game. This is for the protection of yourself, the other players and me as GM. If you say that anything goes, then I will kill your character off right after your first post! Oh, sorry, did you not want your character killed? Well then that is clearly an off for you, isn't it? EVERYBODY has things they do NOT want done to there characters, and everybody has things they WANT done to their characters. UI don't care if the offs are few and the ons too many to count. List all the offs and a few examples of ons, or something. If you say anything goes and someone does something to your character that you don't like, it is no-one's fault but your own!

Other: No one is perfect, least of all me. If you think I've forgotten anything, list it here.

The above map shows the approximate state of the world. Countries coloured green are the Northern Powers. Countries coloured red are the Central Jihad. Blue are allied (however loosely) to the Northern Powers, and yellow have been conquered 75% or more by the Jihad or have declared allegiance to them.

Countries that are grey are either uninhabited due to lack of sufficient civil defence technology, uninhibited due to having been totally destroyed by concerted attack by the Jihad (eg, Israel and Gibraltar), or neutral (for now).

Fighting is going on in a number of fronts, the most significant being:

the Jihadi conquest of Mexico, which what is left of the USA is opposing with everything in its power - obviously this is a deliberate move by the Jihad to take US troops out of Europe.

The Second Reconquista - Mostly European troops fighting to regain control of Spain from the Jihad, and prevent an invasion of France.

The Central Russian Campaign, where the Russians are fighting on a number of splintered fronts, to retain control of their central provinces and prevent the country being cut in two

The Indian Subcontinent - almost a bitter civil war between India, Pakistan and bangladesh, seperate from the rest of the world. Civilian casualties in India are the highest known, and yet the country survives and fights on, drawing Jihad troops away from other theatres and performing a valuable service to the world.

Technology

Technology is actually less advanced than it is today in real life.

Weapons are at around the same level, medical technology has not advanced much - with the exception, obviously, of the nano-genetics necessary to create the ORCS project which was been going on in secret fort a number of years.

Transport technology has crashed. Heavier than air flight is virtually unheard of as it requires too much fuel. Air transport is via airship - lighter than air craft. This of course is dangerous and vulnerable to attack from the ground and so air power is no longer used in forward areas. Sea transport has reverted to sail or steam power, and ground transport mostly uses steam power - there being plenty of dead trees to burn and it's not like burning wood is going to do any more damage to the environment....

A note regarding energy weapons

Those who know me will know that I have a serious anathema to energy weapons. This dislike is founded on a number of basic principals:

1) A laser is in essence a beam of light. The best way to defend against a beam of light is to use something that every teenage girl has in her bedroom: a mirror. A laser beam will bounce off a totally reflective surface, right back at the person firing it!

2) We've had lasers for fifty odd years now. If it were possible, they would have done it already! We have laser sights, laser guided bombs, laser range finding. We also have lasers that are capable of burning through the densest metals in seconds. If we have those, why not actual laser guns? Do you really think the military won't have tried? The reasons we don't have laser guns are because they are impractical. Basically they would be a step backwards from fully automatic weapons that can fire 300 rounds a minute to single shot weapons that require the battery to be changed in between each shot. Or they would need to be plugged into the mains, which rather limits their mobility!

3) As well as the issue of power supply there is the size issue. Sure, batteries may get smaller. Unfortunately, light wavelengths are fixed, and thus so are the sizes of the lenses required to focus beams of light. So a laser capable of burning through a sheet of steel 1" thick is going to be the same size no matter what. And that is actually pretty big...

4) Even if size and and power supply can be overcome - perhaps by mounting the weapon on a vehicle where the engine provides the power, there is another issue: range... A laser used to cut metal does so at a distance of a few millimetres. Why? Because the air around it attenuates the beam. Oh and then there is the line-of-sight problem. On order to hit a target with a laser, you have to be able to see the target, which means the target can see you! Conventional projectile artillery can fire up into the air, over an obstacle, and have the shells come down again on the other side.

5) Did someone say "Plasma" weapons? Um, yeah. We already use them. The Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot anti-tank round currently in use by Nato and allied forces consists of a long thinh penetrator, a solid metal rod, that, on impact with the targets, flashes into plasma due to the sudden change in energy potential. This plasma burns its way through the armour of the target and sets fire to everything inside! So why do we wait unti we hit the target to create the plasma? Attenuation again. using a solid projectile gets as much of the plasma as possible all the way to the target (i.e all of it), where firing the plasma would result in the air around it heating up and the plasma cooling down.

All weapons are projectile weapons, not dissimilar to those we have today, with the exception that a lot of them have the oxygen for the propellant contained within the cartridge, bound chemically to the propellant.

NW, would you like to Co-GM and/or be 2nd in command? You don't have to, I just prefer to have someone in that slot that I know and trust.

Actually, sure! But I'm goign out of town for a few days starting tomorrow- family is SUCH a damn nuisance - so I'll be semi-out of touch for a bit. I'll have email, but my ability to do long posts and such will be constrained.

Awesome, I do like the way you laid out the CS and gave very clear directions of what you want in each field.

The only thing I have a problem with is after selecting the code you say go straight to sending a PM and pasting there to be filled out. I really hope that is not a strict rule as I prefer to paste it into my writing program filling it out, saving it, and then when it is completed pasting everything into the PM. It can take me days to fully flesh out a character to my liking so having access to it even when off line works best for me. That and then I have to bring back up should my computer crash, which it does from time to time.

Okay I know that was not a rule. I can't help being a "Smart ass" sometimes.